Fidelity Bank is the first FDIC-insured institution in Michigan to fail this year.

The pace of bank closures has slowed sharply after ballooning following the financial crisis in 2008. By this time last year, 26 banks had failed.

In 2010, regulators seized 157 banks, the most in any year since the savings and loan crisis two decades ago. Those failures cost the fund around $23 billion. The FDIC has said 2010 likely was the high-water mark for bank failures from the Great Recession.

Last year, 92 banks failed, costing the fund about $7.9 billion.

In 2009 there were 140 bank failures that cost the fund about $36 billion. That was more than in 2010 because the banks involved were bigger on average. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck. Only three closed in 2007.

From 2008 through 2010, bank failures cost the fund an estimated $79 billion. The FDIC expects failures from 2011 through 2015 to cost $19 billion.

The deposit insurance fund fell into the red in 2009. With failures slowing, the FDIC's fund balance turned positive in the second quarter of last year.

At Dec. 31 it stood at $9.2 billion, nearly 18 percent higher than three months earlier, according to the FDIC.